Whatcha playin? (Video games wise.)

Goodsport said:

(DLC for consoles, Expansion Pack for the PC)

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You know, you can call content like this is DLC for PC as well.

An "expansion pack" is usually something that adds significant amount of content (around one third to half compared to that in the vanilla game) and is distributed not only digitally, but also on physical disc - and is by no means limited by platform. Ever since the emergence of digital distribution which has made delivering extra stuff in smaller chunks viable, these have become quite rare.

So, um... how 'bout that Skyrim: Dawnguard trailer?


-G

Ive been playing bully scholarship edition for WII, although the game came out in 2006. Its made by Rockstar, makers of GTA and Max Payne, so it has alot of free roam in it, but there isnt any killing in it. LOTS of fighting, but no killing. Pretty much, your a tough, mischievous boy, who had been kicked out of tons of schools, who causes lots of trouble and makes his way to the top of his school. Its really fun, but whenever my friend plays it he messes me up, cause, i went through half the game without getting in trouble (being caught by the school prefects or police) my friend plays and gets caught tons of times, i tell him not to save the game... he does.

Nurhachi1991 said:

.... can anyone help me find a reasonably priced jacket like Mr. Paynes?

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To go with your Cole Phelps fedora? I tried that look several years ago, and I must recommend against it. You'd be better off spending your hard earned pesos on this:



Coming next week to the Rockstar Warehouse.

Still, if you insist you can pick up a can pick up a three-quarter length leather trench for about two-hundred bucks including tax. Be forewarned though, real leather -- I mean really good leather is expensive. Oftentimes prohibitively so. Don't be fooled by the bottom-dwelling 'netshoppes.

Finn said:

Though isn't this something anyone with half a brain could easily find out by spending a couple of minutes with Wikipedia or Google?

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Or by watching one of the handy Behind the Scenes videos Rockstar helpfully produced.

To follow-up what Finn said, the references to the first two games are minimal to non-existant. One of the few obvious references I caught was to this lovely lady.



It wasn't positive.

Don't like owning digital ether? The Rockstar Warehouse also has you covered: Max Payne 1 & 2 can be had for the PC, PS2 & X-Box.

Goodsport said:

So, um... how 'bout that Skyrim: Dawnguard trailer?

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Eh, I dunno. It's vampires. In Middle Earth. With dragons. I never progressed past level nine in Skyrim, so...

Le Saboteur said:

To follow-up what Finn said, the references to the first two games are minimal to non-existant. One of the few obvious references I caught was to this lovely lady.

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She looks more... aged than I remembered. After all, the game was absolute graphical top notch when it came out, bit like MP3 is now (on PC, at least). Oh well. Either my memories have sweetened with time or the image is simply low-res.

I have the game waiting on my shelf, but haven't tried it out yet since I'm still a bit busy with another title.

Le Saboteur said:

Eh, I dunno. It's vampires. In Middle Earth. With dragons. I never progressed past level nine in Skyrim, so...

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I haven't even touched Skyrim yet, despite having it waiting, like Mr. Payne. Though in this case, it was a deliberate decision to wait it out. I've been following its post-launch development closely though, and I'd say it's nearing the stage where both the devs and the modding community have had sufficient time to iron out its kinks, hopefully turning it to a true contemporary masterpiece.

Okay!

I just spent the last hour writing a nice little comprehensive post only to have The Raven kindly inform me that I wasn't logged in and couldn't access that page.

Nice.

This trailer is even better than the reveal for the next outing in the Assassin's Creed series.


Damn the Defiant! And admire the hell out of those invisible foretopmen in Connor's crew! He's no John Paul Jones, but, damn, I wish somebody would put this much effort into an Age of Sail outing.


Ubisoft is going to make a mint off the American Revolution. Does anybody else find it perverse that they've announced a trio of special editions for everywhere but the United States?

I like this one for the name.



Do I need another statue? Maybe.

The Special Edition

The Special Edition features a special packaging, the retail copy of the game and an exclusive single player mission:
- A Dangerous Secret: Fight against a secret that could jeopardize the funding of the revolution. In case of success, you'll be rewarded with an exclusive weapon: a Flintlock Musket.

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Watch the States end up with the "Special Edition". Lame.

I'll rewrite the rest of the post later.

Le Saboteur said:

Okay!

I just spent the last hour writing a nice little comprehensive post only to have The Raven kindly inform me that I wasn't logged in and couldn't access that page.

Nice.

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Pro Tip: Whenever working on something lengthy, type it out to Notepad and copy-paste from there instead of relying on your browser's temperamental cookies.


That being said, it'll be interesting to see what kinds of new tricks they've managed to teach the AC franchise to make it feel fresh again. That cinematic trailer did require some heavy suspension of disbelief though, since the odds aren't very good for anyone who engages melee (and to top it off, solo melee) surrounded by a large amount of enemy combatants bearing firearms, no matter how archaic.

"All right chaps, you know the rules of engagement. You're to approach him in groups of three, and the ones watching from the sidelines are only allowed to join if one of the mates in the thick of it can't carry on, for reason or another."
"Sir! Isn't there an easier... I mean, can't we just, you know, **** our guns and shoot the bloody Yank?"
"My word, soldier! That wouldn't be sporting at all now, would it?"

Finn said:

Just get New Vegas. Gameplaywise, it's essentially More Of The Same, but (at least in my opinion) with even better script & setting.

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It's been over a year since you made that recommendation.

I dropped out of gameplaying for a while, but Fallout 3 called me back. I've almost completed my second play-through. (I'm leaving Point Lookout until the end again as it has such great atmosphere).

I've completed a bunch of fan-made quests and worlds. I got to level 30 an age ago, so I've been resetting to level 29 each time, just to add the impetus of gaining perks for continually gaining experience. The 47 add-on Regulator missions are an excellent way of gaining experience, so long as you leave your companions at Regulator HQ. (They say hello to me as I run past them on the way to cashing in my 'Fugitive Finger').

I love this game for the reasons I posted here:

Smiffy said:

That's the joy of something like Fallout 3. You can choose either 1st or 3rd person during gameplay.

And even when playing in the 1st, you can go into an 'action mode' where time stops, you choose your targets (including the body part of the target in question), and you sit back and watch the results in glorious slow-motion and from multiple camera angles.

It provides some very cinematic (and gruesome!) sequences.

There are different ways to play the game, and how you play dictates how it unfolds. There are options to avoid violence, or to provoke it. Talking to non-player characters can open up major and minor news quests, or even the option to recruit companions. Going anywhere on a huge map by any means possible gives a real thrill of exploration the first time you play, and as time passes through day into night, there are more options for covert action.

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But I'm in need of a new world to explore - seeing the vastness of the Wasteland for the first time in daylight was a thrilling moment.

I was waiting for the release of the complete edition of New Vegas (with all the DLCs). It's been out a while now, and I've just ordered the 'Ultimate Edition'.

I exhausted the best files here: http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/

Eventually I'll have done the same for those here:

http://newvegas.nexusmods.com/

I dropped out of the AC world halfway through the 2nd game. AC III, however, looks absolutely brilliant! I can't wait for it, Tomb Raider and Aliens: Colonial Marines!

Finn said:

Pro Tip: Whenever working on something lengthy, type it out to Notepad and copy-paste from there instead of relying on your browser's temperamental cookies.

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Yes, yes, yes.

Finn said:

That cinematic trailer did require some heavy suspension of disbelief though, since the odds aren't very good for anyone who engages melee (and to top it off, solo melee) surrounded by a large amount of enemy combatants bearing firearms, no matter how archaic.

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I agree with the qualification: Rate and concentration of fire were the most important aspect of military engagements of the era. This is how the Royal Navy came to dominate the Seven Seas, not because of any superiority in seamanship. That said, if a crack line infantry unit could fire two-to-three rounds per minute, then there is ample time between shots for a speedy and well-trained assassin to cover ground. Once actually in melee then, you'd end up dead before you could reload.

Le Saboteur said:

Damn the Defiant! And admire the hell out of those invisible foretopmen in Connor's crew! He's no John Paul Jones, but, damn, I wish somebody would put this much effort into an Age of Sail outing.

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I kept wondering how naval combat in the Caribbean would fit into a story-arc about the American Revolution. Why? The Continental Navy was a joke; of the 13 frigates built during the Revolution, seven were captured and taken into the Royal Navy, and another four were destroyed to prevent their falling into enemy hands.


According to the above video the game spans a thirty year time period before, during, and after the Revolution. Since the fledgling US & France fought a Quasi War in the final two years of the 18th Century, this would be a great way to continue the naval aspect. Especially since it was fought throughout the Caribbean.

Le Saboteur said:

That said, if a crack line infantry unit could fire two-to-three rounds per minute, then there is ample time between shots for a speedy and well-trained assassin to cover ground. Once actually in melee then, you'd end up dead before you could reload.

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I'm aware as well that rifles of that era were not exactly designed for speed-loading. I can see Connor approaching a single enemy armed like that - if he misses, he's pretty much as good as dead. But as my little affectionate parody presents, the suspension doesn't exactly require dealing with the equipment itself, it's number of people carrying it. Even if Connor is able to engage two or three nearest enemies with non-loaded rifles with his assassin-like precision and speed, there are still more than enough of other foes around him who should have enough time to reload and try their luck.

Okay, you did mention the military discipline which was apparently a huge thing, and there's still that opposing line to consider, so perhaps they'll have to be taking them into account as well instead of concentrating their attention to one loony who seems to have broken the ranks. Maybe it's the contemporary military discipline drilled into my head that makes it seem non-sensical to me. In a modern battle order, your most immediate concern should always be whoever's the most immediate threat to your own person, be it a general, a tank or a simple grunt.

Anyway, there's always a surefire way to drown these concerns once you actually get to try it out yourself; they're pretty quickly forgotten if the game is, you know, fun to play.

How many of you are looking forward to GTA 5? Because im excited!

IndyJoey said:

How many of you are looking forward to GTA 5? Because im excited!

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Sounds like somebody needs to smack your parents.

I completed Fallout: New Vegas - fought the Battle of Hoover Dam with Yes Man and the ugraded Securitrons. Sent Legate Lanius packing and tossed General Oliver over the dam.

The credits played, and as with Fallout 3 with the DLCs loaded, I expected to be returned to the game.

But no, final means final in this one. I hadn't even started Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues or Lonesome Road.


Yet all was not lost. There's a mod to allow you to return and continue beyond the credits. It's not perfect, since it doesn't take account of the unique ending. The NCR are still around, for example.

The new credit scene is funny. You're in a small room with a projector playing the scenes and a narrator standing in the corner doing all the voices.

After this you're dumped back into the Mojave to pick up where you left off.

This made for an interesting excursion when I immediately fast travelled back to Caesar's fort. Mopped up his forces, entered his tent killed him and took his armour.

Finn said:

Gameplaywise, it's essentially More Of The Same, but (at least in my opinion) with even better script & setting.

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The story was more involved than Fallout 3. Politics and diplomacy were just as important as weapons, and doing the right thing for one faction leads to repercussions with another you're also trying to help.

Montana Smith said:

The credits played, and as with Fallout 3 with the DLCs loaded, I expected to be returned to the game.

But no, final means final in this one. I hadn't even started Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues or Lonesome Road.

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It's kind of funny. The landscape in New Vegas is far less static than it was in Fallout 3. You can alter the world and the dynamics between factions in a myriad of ways within the game proper, but yet they explained this no free play after the ending thing by saying that they couldn't make the necessary alterations to the world as presented in the various ending slides.

Montana Smith said:

This made for an interesting excursion when I immediately fast travelled back to Caesar's fort. Mopped up his forces, entered his tent killed him and took his armour.

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This is a fine case in that point. Many people around the game world talk about Caesar with dread, but he is NOT a plot-critical, essential NPC. Going after his head around half-way through alters many quests and is in fact a requirement for some of the better endings and outcomes.



The game I finished most recently was Max Payne 3. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised as to how familiar it felt in regards of the previous two. Despite the original dev moving on, Rockstar hit most if not all the correct notes in regards to both gameplay and story elements.

While it was a solid shooter and overall a memorable experience, in vein of games in its genre, I don't unfortunately see much replay value in it. Another playthrough, maybe this time with a guide in hand to pick up all the collectibles I missed may be in the pipeline somewhere near future, but after that I don't see myself going to back to it any time soon.


Summer in Finland is usually pretty, but at times it can be a bit temperamental as well - as is the case right now. But on the plus side, the clouds and general dampness are giving me a great excuse to wade into my mammoth backlog of acquired games not played, books not read and movies not watched. Now that Smitty brought it up, among them are the New Vegas DLCs. So, from São Paulo to Mojave to god knows where...

Finn said:

It's kind of funny. The landscape in New Vegas is far less static than it was in Fallout 3. You can alter the world and the dynamics between factions in a myriad of ways within the game proper, but yet they explained this no free play after the ending thing by saying that they couldn't make the necessary alterations to the world as presented in the various ending slides.

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It's a great shame that they couldn't expand the game that little bit more so you could experience life in the world your character forged.

Finn said:

This is a fine case in that point. Many people around the game world talk about Caesar with dread, but he is NOT a plot-critical, essential NPC. Going after his head around half-way through alters many quests and is in fact a requirement for some of the better endings and outcomes.

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At the beginning of the game, when my character was weak and under-armed, the Legion were the toughest opponents. It took ages to finish off a patrol. However, as soon as I had the Light MG or the 12.7mm SMG they went down like Powder Gangers.

In a funny way the game is best when you're forced to use tactics, choose your weapons carefully and conserve ammunition. Later on it gets too easy, so I might try again in Hard Core mode.

Finn said:

While it was a solid shooter and overall a memorable experience, in vein of games in its genre, I don't unfortunately see much replay value in it. Another playthrough, maybe this time with a guide in hand to pick up all the collectibles I missed may be in the pipeline somewhere near future, but after that I don't see myself going to back to it any time soon.

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I've gone through it twice now on Normal & Hard. This morning I started up a third outing on Hardcore. Why? Because I'm trophy hunting. I've yet to earn a platinum trophy on anything, and Max's newest outing offers one of the better opportunities for that.

That said, I agree on replay value -- it's lacking, but that's to be expected on something that's so heavily story-driven. There has been some quite interesting tactical challenges presented on both Hard & Hardcore thus far. On one of the latter levels, UFE had me pinned. While I was exchanging gunfire with two other belligerents, a third snuck down the stairs behind me and dug a canoe out of my skull.

I was impressed. I've also been thrilled with the amount of detail on display in the cutscenes and throughout the levels themselves. Check out the beginning to Chapter Two and see if you notice Serrano lurking in the background.

Favourite level: Suntan Oil, Stale Margaritas, and Greed.

The first DLC now has an official release date: 3 July 2012. If you've enjoyed the surprisingly entertaining multi-player, you might want to give this a whirl. I'm waiting for the Trickle Down Economics pack.

Local Justice Trailer

Le Saboteur said:

I've gone through it twice now on Normal & Hard. This morning I started up a third outing on Hardcore. Why? Because I'm trophy hunting. I've yet to earn a platinum trophy on anything, and Max's newest outing offers one of the better opportunities for that.

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Have to say, all this fuss over achievements, trophies and whatnot completely escapes me. Fine, I have been witnessed to go after most egregious of trials over and over to nail it if it perhaps yields some in-game unlocks or extra story content, but to pull something off for bragging rights only? Pass.

Le Saboteur said:

That said, I agree on replay value -- it's lacking, but that's to be expected on something that's so heavily story-driven.

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Yeah. My comment on this was by no means a harp on the game's quality. It's definitely far from being the only party guilty to this in its genre. Have to agree what you said about the AI as well. It does seem to be programmed with a handful of extra tricks to keep the player from sticking to one cover for too long, instigating those trademark slo-mo dives. Although after a few attempts, even these do seem to appear somewhat limited.

Thus it's somewhat appropiate to say that I've already moved on. Too much stuff in my backlog that also deserve their single playthrough. Though unlike most of these (or so I think), MP3 does deserve another look sometime in the future.

Finn said:

Have to say, all this fuss over achievements, trophies and whatnot completely escapes me.

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There was some discussion rather recently about whether or not the lack of achievements and/or trophies hurt game sales. Where I read it, I don't remember; a glance at a couple of old message board entries seems to confirm this though -- no trophy support equals a lost sale.

Personally speaking, I enjoy the challenge proffered by the game's creators. Whether or not anybody actually notices what I've managed to accomplish is immaterial. I fully agree, however, that there's a segment of the gaming populace that thinks their ability to succeed at a game's on-line component is somehow awe-inspiring and/or actually relevant to anything in the real world.

Finn said:

It's definitely far from being the only party guilty to this in its genre.

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I understand the complaint. I just never found it legitimate. Is 10-hours of gameplay with an engaging story worth less than a game with 100-hrs of gameplay and a story that barely holds the whole enterprise together? Or is this mentality part of the reason behind the decline in the adventure game everywhere that's not Germany?

Which reminds me, I just recently found the disc for Full Throttle, the first game I ever bought with my own money.

Finn said:

Too much stuff in my backlog that also deserve their single playthrough.

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I still need to play through the original Broken Sword and Mata Hari. Both were downloaded months ago, and I barely spent five minutes with them.

Going back to the above topic, this might satisfy both of our tastes.

Le Saboteur said:

I understand the complaint. I just never found it legitimate. Is 10-hours of gameplay with an engaging story worth less than a game with 100-hrs of gameplay and a story that barely holds the whole enterprise together? Or is this mentality part of the reason behind the decline in the adventure game everywhere that's not Germany?

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It was hardly a complaint. In fact, if the game was not a linear, tightly-woven experience and had, say, open-world sections or character customization, branching story elements and like, it would hardly be Max Payne. I think said comment came out of me more for the purposes of this discussion - since it was a fun one-time romp for me (at least for now), it may not inspire an engaging back-and-forth about it. Guess I was wrong.

That being said, I know plenty of games that do reach the best of all worlds, having longevity, replay value and a story that holds together regardless. In fact, the game I've probably most raved about in here recently hits all those marks.


Re: Adventure games. To be honest, I don't actually see a decline in the genre. On the opposite, I'd say it's about as healthy as it has ever been. Now, it's just dwarved by new players on the field, with bigger marketing and more mainstream attention. I won't deny that adventure gaming is definitely something of an underground movement these days, but when you think of it, in their heyday all gaming was somewhat underground. So it's not so much a decline in genre as it is a change in perspective.

Le Saboteur said:

I still need to play through the original Broken Sword and Mata Hari. Both were downloaded months ago, and I barely spent five minutes with them.

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As I've said before, Broken Sword should be worth anyone's time. Mata Hari, however, missed some chords with me. It fell guilty of having too many puzzles that hardly supported the narrative, which is essential when you're trying to tell a "serious" story. It's not easy, but I expected more from Barwood considering he got it almost flawlessly right with FoA.

Le Saboteur said:

Going back to the above topic, this might satisfy both of our tastes.

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Oh yeah. Have had that one in my sights for a while. It's giving me those classic Thief vibes, with a facelift. Unless the reviews universally come down on it hard, I'll be all over it.